Gwen: Four months

Gwen, you’re four months old!

four months old

Since I see you every day, I don’t always appreciate how you are changing all the time.  You’re now firmly into the 3-6 month clothes size, and you’re definitely getting heavier!  Earlier this month we visited a Plunket karitane nurse, a special kind of nurse who is trained in baby care and flexibility of routines.  She said you should generally be able to push yourself up on your arms when on your tummy, and to hold your head up for a good long while.  At the time, you weren’t doing that, but it was only a few days before you got the idea.  Now you seem to love tummy time (until you get tired; then you hate it!).

tummy time in your flowery non-pink outfit from Sam

With your ease on your tummy, you’ve started to roll over onto your back.  You’ve done this a couple of times, but now you seem to stubbornly refuse to do it.  Maybe you’ll be back to it in another week or two.

You’re sleeping through the night terribly well!  After we put you to bed, and you get the dreamfeed from your father around 10:30, you sleep until about 7:00.  This has been blissful.  Last week you woke up around 5:30 and talked to yourself for a good 10 minutes until you fell back to sleep.  Your father and I listened along sleepily and giggled at how funny you sounded.

sucking your thumb already

You’re still full of smiles for anyone you meet, but especially for us.  A particular pleasure is the first glimpse of us when you wake up in the morning; I have never seen such beaming smiles on anyone!

We were hard at work earlier this week beginning your transition to a four-hour feeding routine, something the Baby Whisperer says you’ll need to be able to keep sleeping well.  You adjusted within three days with a minimum of fuss, and now you are down to five feeds and three naps in a day.  You’re a placid girl who is happy to go with the flow, and never seems to have any gripes related to food.

Last month I couldn’t imagine how I could go back to work.  This month, I spent a couple of hours at work for meetings and to collect blood samples.  I really enjoyed myself at work, especially the interaction with my past and future colleagues, and now I can start to see how well being a scientist will fit with being a mum.  I still can’t quite get enough done in a day to satisfy me, though.

We did something very special with you this month: we went to Kerikeri for a friend’s wedding.  This town is a four hour drive north of Auckland.  You did so well, sleeping in the car nearly the entire time, and playing and sleeping well at our charming B&B and at the wedding.  It was our first car trip as a family, and it went so much better than we had hoped.  Thanks for being such a seasoned traveler already.

takeaway food in Russell

You’re hungry enough now that I’m sure solid food will not be too far away, and you’re making a steadily increasing set of amazing coos and gurgles of glee.  I can’t wait to see what else you’ll start doing in the next month.